


How To Catch A Mentor

by EyesHalfFamiliar



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Age Difference, Age Swap, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 13:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15842022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EyesHalfFamiliar/pseuds/EyesHalfFamiliar
Summary: "My name is Shiro, Cadet Takashi Shirogane. I wanted to know why you turned me down for mentorship."Shiro is a 16-year-old cadet (and resident disaster gay) with a crush on the Garrison's star pilot, Keith Kogane. With the skill and determination to become an ace pilot himself, Shiro's an excellent candidate for mentorship. His mentor just needs some convincing.





	How To Catch A Mentor

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by some of the fantastic age-swap sheith fanart I've seen on Tumblr. It's a really interesting AU concept that has me high-key intrigued.
> 
> Also, Shiro's crush is currently one-sided, so I don't want to see any hand-wringing in the comments about age gaps or power gaps. Teenagers getting crushes on older or more authoritative people is a normal thing.

Lieutenant Keith Kogane looked like the tragic rebel heartthrob out of an old 1980s flick. He was elbow deep in the engine of a cherry-red hoverbike with his long, black hair (definitely not regulation length) pulled back in a low ponytail. His signature red-and-black leather jacket hung over the back of the bike, leaving him in a thin black tank top that seemed made to show off every lean muscle in his upper body.

But Shiro hadn't come here to ogle the Garrison's star pilot. He was on a mission. He cleared his throat.

"Excuse me, sir?"

Lieutenant Kogane turned to face him, as fine-featured and handsome up close as he was on TV interviews or across the Garrison grounds. Sharp eyes flicked from Shiro's face to his orange cadet uniform.

"You lost?" he asked, blunt, but not unkind. It wasn't a bad assumption. Cadets didn't usually wander the vehicle lots after classes.

"No, I..." Shiro cleared his throat again to prevent his voice cracking from nervousness. That would be unacceptable at such a critical moment.

"My name is Shiro, Cadet Takashi Shirogane. I wanted to know why you turned me down for mentorship."

There. He'd gotten it out, just like he'd rehearsed.

Kogane blinked, gave him a second look over, and straightened up. He was shorter than Shiro, but athletically built. Shiro's recent growth spurt had left him gangly and coltish and constantly hungry. Keith was built like a martial artist (or a street fighter, if some of the Garrison's wilder rumors could be believed), lean and muscular. Little bulk, but lots of definition.

_Don't get distracted, Shirogane._

"Right. Iverson told me about you." Kogane grabbed a nearby rag to wipe the engine grease from his hands, looking at them rather than Shiro. "I saw your sim scores. You're good. You don't need my help."

Normally, that kind of praise from the Garrison's gorgeous star pilot would have left Shiro on cloud nine, but it wasn't what he was after.

"Thank you, sir, but I want to get better," he said diplomatically. "I want to learn to fly the way you do. The regular instructors are good, but they can't teach me that."

"And neither can I," Kogane shot back, brow furrowing.

Shiro tried not to wither at the irritation in his voice.

"Look," the lieutenant continued, "I've tried teaching before, and it didn't work out. I'm not good with people, and I'm not good at explaining things, especially not about flying."

"Like with the Venus mission," Shiro blurted out before he could think better of it.

A few years back, one of the research stations floating in Venus's upper atmosphere had malfunctioned and started sinking towards the planet's lethal surface. Lieutenant Kogane – well, not a lieutenant back then – had gone back to evacuate the last two scientists against orders. The station had sunk faster than expected and had fallen below the safe range of the rescue shuttles. The planet's atmospheric pressure was immense and only increased as one descended, and the thrusters on those shuttles were only capable of so much.

The way Shiro had heard it, Kogane had ordered the scientists to rig the doomed station to detonate, using the explosion to create a shockwave their shuttle could ride to the upper atmosphere. It had been a mad, impossible maneuver. No one could have pulled it off.

But Keith Kogane did.

The stunt had elevated Keith from a skilled pilot to a legend overnight. But in all the interviews Shiro had seen, the pilot had never been able to give a concrete explanation of how he did it. The best pilots in the Garrison had tried to replicate that escape in the sims, and no one had even come close. It had become a point of mild contention, with some pilots even grumbling that Kogane was holding out on them, as if there were some secret or trick he was keeping to himself.

"Yeah, like that," Kogane agreed with a huff. "I've told people how I did it, but they keep saying it's not possible. As if there weren't two other people there who saw it. Just because they can't do it in the sims doesn't mean it can't be done."

"So, how do you explain it?" Shiro prompted.

Lieutenant Kogane leaned back against his bike, arms crossed, quietly pensive. Shiro tried not to get distracted by his biceps, or the way stray wisps of hair curved against his jaw.

"Being in a real ship is different," he said at last. "The sims decide how ships will move based on whatever data you put into them. Wind speed, gravity, acceleration, atmospheric pressure, and whatever. But when you're in a real ship? There's just... _more_."

His eyes got a bit distant, and Shiro felt like the pilot was looking past him.

"Sims can only account for the things the programmers think to put in there. A real ship moves different. It feels different. It's just..."

He gave a frustrated grunt and ran a hand through his hair, and Shiro waited for him to find his words.

"When I flew that mission on Venus, I didn't know if I'd survive getting off that station, but I knew I couldn't leave those people behind. When the explosion went off, I didn't even look at my dash for the readings. I just... _felt_ it."

"Felt it?" Shiro echoed, engrossed.

"Through the shuttle," Kogane explained. "I don't know how to explain it, but I could _feel_ where the air was different, where the pressure changed, how fast the shockwave accelerated, and that told me where I needed to be and how to move. That's how I rode the explosion out.

"And I guess that's the problem," the pilot summed up with a shrug. "I don't know how to teach a feeling."

And that... that was a valid concern. Honestly, Shiro wasn't even sure he could learn how to "feel the air". He didn't know how anyone could. Still...

"I could shadow you," Shiro suggested. "You explain what you can, and I'll figure out the rest by watching. I won't be in the way. Uh... sir."

He added the formality quickly at the end, afraid he'd gotten too casual.

The lieutenant eyed his expression, his gaze sharp and measuring. It was intimidating, but Shiro didn't let himself flinch.

"First year, right? They haven't let you out of the sims yet?"

"That's right, sir."

"Ever flown one of these?" Kogane jerked his head towards his hoverbike.

"No, sir," Shiro said, hope burning dangerously bright in his chest, "but I've read the manuals."

The older man's mouth curved into a heart-fluttering smirk.

"Alright."

He grabbed a helmet from nearby and chucked it at Shiro's chest. Startled, Shiro barely caught it.

"You can ride that one." Keith gestured at one of the Garrison's standard hoverbikes. "And quit calling me 'sir'! The name's Keith."

"Yes, si- Keith." Shiro corrected himself. "It's, uh... it's getting close to curfew for cadets, though, so..."

"So, I'll teach how to sneak in when we're done," Keith said casually, as if breaking curfew didn't matter at all to him. It probably didn't if half the rumors about him were true. Aside from being a renowned pilot, the lieutenant was an infamous troublemaker. Shiro had heard that half the reason the higher-ups didn't have him teaching classes was because they feared the influence he'd have on impressionable cadets.

"Will that be my first lesson?" Shiro asked, elated and confident enough now to tease. He climbed onto his assigned hoverbike eagerly, feeling a physical thrill at the chance to finally _fly_ something.

"Nope. That will be your second." Keith closed up the side panel on his bike, pulled on his jacket, and swung gracefully into the seat. Without a helmet, Shiro noted.

"What's the first?"

Keith flashed him a wild, mischievous grin that made Shiro's thoughts stutter.

"Keep up."

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if Keith's stunt has any chance of working IRL, but if VLD can fudge science to suit the plot, so can I.
> 
> Also, holy cow, it was hard to remember not to refer to Keith by his first name until the end. I kept having to correct myself when editing to keep things consistent with Shiro's perspective.


End file.
